Underkeeper

Bernt stepped into the breakroom with Jori on his shoulder to find it buzzing with activity. Most of the Underkeepers’ mages were there, alongside Glim, Palina and several other guards. The tables along one wall were occupied by Halfbridge’s solicitors. Unlike the guilds or the Underkeepers, they didn’t have a specific style of dress or identifying characteristics. That made sense, he supposed. What warlock would really want to be recognized on sight in the street?

There were twelve of them in total, ranging from a lanky teenager, who Bernt supposed must be an apprentice, to a wild-haired old woman who looked more like a homeless person than someone that could bring the wrath of the hells down on her enemies. The kid eyed the goblins in the room nervously, as if he thought they might bite.

Most, though, were clean-cut and dressed in the latest styles, like Josie. If he didn’t know better, he would have guessed that they were minor nobles or wealthy merchants. None looked injured, which was impressive considering that most of them should have been at work when their building was brought down on top of them. Then again, Bernt had seen what kinds of healing potions Josie carried around.

Ed pointed to a spot on the ward map representing the main access tunnel, not far from the entrance to the Undercity Market.

“...f time, but I want to make sure we’re there to greet them properly. You all know what to do, I expect you to coordinate your teams as best you can. Dismissed!”

Disoriented by the quick reversal, Bernt let himself be swept out of the room and into the courtyard area at the front of the complex. More guards were already massing there, roused from sleep by the bell and still tightening the straps on their armor.

Right. Good point. Quickly, Bernt made sure that his own armored robe was fastened properly, and that his wand was secure in his sleeve. Then, he mentally nudged Jori to jump off of his shoulder so he could pull off the bag of holding he always carried with him. He dug out his thorn skin amulet, a small roll of enchanted bandages, a minor healing potion, and his dagger. The scratchy amulet went around his neck and the dagger into a loop on his belt. He stuffed the rest into his pockets.

He stuck his hand back into the bag, hoping that maybe he might have another minor healing potion in there, when his fingers brushed across something unfamiliar. Curious, he pulled it out.

It was a rock. Why did he have a rock?

It wasn’t until he turned it over and saw the circle of runes carved into it that he remembered what it was. He’d bought this on a whim from Grixit a few months earlier and completely forgotten that he had it. The inscribed rune circle could, if activated, briefly open an unstable portal to the elemental plane of fire.

It wasn’t a very practical weapon – he couldn’t activate it at a distance and there was no way to avoid collateral damage unless he was in a tunnel, where he could direct the heat perfectly. Even then, he would need a bit of time to set up a temperature barrier.

Probably too dangerous to use down here. Reluctantly, he put the stone back in the bag and then stowed it in a corner behind some cleaning supplies. No sense in getting the bag cut up or burned. Then Bernt hurried to join his assigned unit. It was, in effect, his interception team – Kustov, Josie, Glim and a small contingent of guards with a few additions. Jori stayed with him, and another warlock, who introduced himself as Bartholomew joined them as well. The latter was a tall, slim man in his late twenties. He carried a rune-carved staff, marking him as at least a rudimentary sort of mage as well.

“Alright, that’s everybody,” Kustov said as a few more guards, including Nirlig and Torvald, fell into line with the others. “We’ve been assigned to the lower flanking position. Our job is purely offensive – at least that’s the idea. Ed and his team will contain the enemy and block the way up, while we cover the bottom and do our best to make sure that they don’t have time to deliver whatever surprises they have planned for us. If that fails, we retreat back to the primary defensive line at the market entrance.”

As they began marching out the door, Bernt got up close next to Kustov and tapped him on the shoulder. “Why isn’t the military back here?” he asked. The question had been bothering him from the moment he’d heard the alarm. “Shouldn’t they be intercepting this?”

Kustov made a noncommittal noise. “We sent messages nearly half an hour ago, but they haven’t responded. The head warlock fellow said they’re fighting. It’s up to us, this time.”

***

The entrance to the Undercity Market, previously wide enough to easily allow two carts to pass by each other without slowing pedestrian traffic, had been fortified. It was now barely wider than a common doorway. Someone, probably Kustov, had mostly blocked the tunnel off in the last few hours, pulling the walls inward to make a funnel shape.

Next to the main tunnel entrance, Bernt saw several narrow passages, barely wide enough for a single person. Yarrod scrambled into one of these as they passed and Bernt thought he recognized Rindle coming out of another on the other side. Kustov led their unit through, into the main tunnel and up a short distance. Keeping his eyes peeled, Bernt still nearly missed the arrow slits in the corners at the tunnel floor and ceiling.

Putting his hand to the stone wall, Kustov stopped and cast a spell of some sort, then moved a few steps and did it again. Nodding to himself, he planted his hammer on the ground in front of him. As other Underkeepers, led by Ed and Dayle, made their way past, the stone at the dwarf’s feet rose up in front of them in a section more than a foot thick. It stopped just under Kustov’s shoulders, roughly at Bernt’s midsection. It didn’t block the tunnel completely – the others would need to be able to get by – but it would provide them some cover.

“Alright. I want our spears up against the wall. Keep your weapons pointed at the enemy and keep them off of the casters. Torvald, Josie, you’re with me on the end here. Bernt, Jori, I want you two up against the tunnel wall. Don’t wait for instructions, just burn them when they come.”

In the time it took Bernt and the others to get into position, the tunnel in front of them had been transformed. Ed and Dayle had expanded the tunnel directly in front of them, widening it into a chamber of sorts to give themselves more room to work with – neither of them were slouches when it came to earth magic, even if they weren’t on Kustov’s level.

The dwarf hadn’t stopped casting, either. Completely unfamiliar runes formed along the top of the wall in front of them, followed by a braided double line of even more runes that carved themselves into the floor in a semicircle in front of their wall. That showed where Kustov expected the enemy to break through – barely three steps in front of him. Bernt knew that Silvercrag Hall – Kustov’s home city – was famous for its rune work, but he’d never really considered the combat applications of the practice. Runecarving was normally a slow process. They had to be shaped properly and spaced just right to work. Seeing this, though, the dwarf might be able to compete with some abjurers. Sure, Janus could do more and faster, but the gnome was an archmage.

Bernt drew his wand from his sleeve, holding it tightly in his left hand as he looked around apprehensively. With a crack, Dayle cast a spell that shattered and churned the stone floor of their killing field, kicking up dust and fouling the footing in front of them. A moment later, Kustov compounded the effect by causing shards of what looked like volcanic glass to erupt from the sundered rocks. Ed and Fiora cast force barriers to provide better defensive cover. While they could have put up a wall of their own, they opted for a simple trench instead, courtesy of Dayle. The force barriers wouldn’t hold very long if they didn’t maintain the spells actively – the enemy must be close. He needed to focus.

Concentrating, Bernt raised a one-way temperature barrier, first in front of Ed’s unit and then another along Kustov’s wall in front of them. He held the wand in his left hand, even though he suspected that the barrier would be stronger with the influence of his sorcerous investiture. The problem was that it might then also interfere with spells cast through it in both directions – not the sort of thing he should experiment with in a situation like this.

By the time he finished the spells, he could feel a soft rumble in the stone beneath his feet. A moment later, the tunnel wall simply fell in toward them, revealing massive, gleaming claws and a star-shaped nose.

With a shriek, Jori flung a fistful of hellfire at the beast. The mole made a low, rumbling squawk and flinched back. Then the wall next to it exploded outward into the tunnel. Rocks as big as Bernt’s head bounced off of Ed and Fiora’s barriers and filled the tunnels with dust. He didn’t wait to see what had done it. With his left hand, Bernt cast banefire and sent it into the gloom.

At the same time, he poured unshaped mana into his right hand. Shaped into a spell by his sorcerous investiture, it naturally also incorporated the effects of his first, producing a liquid version of the perpetual flame that pooled in his palm as white fire. He flung the burning plasma as quickly as he could create it, oddly reminiscent of the way Jori cast her hellfire. To his right, he could see magic missiles flying in from Fiora. Shouts and massive sounds of impact all around came out of the gloom.

All at once, the dust cohered into clumps and fell like rain, revealing a scene of utter mayhem.

The massive mole lay dead, only its head emerging into the main tunnel. The breach was a wide, ragged hole, and armored grayish-skinned dwarves pressed in toward them. There were bodies on the ground, some of them crushed, while others were horribly burned.

A hollow, inhuman shriek interrupted his casting and, for a moment, everything stopped. It was like Josie’s ability, but it wasn’t her. The warlock was standing next to Kustov, her hands over her ears. The other one, Bartholomew, looked just as rattled as everyone else. This had to have been an enemy warlock.

Only then did Bernt realize that, while the sound was very unpleasant, he wasn’t being overwhelmed by horrible memories. Were Kustov's wards that good? With an overhand motion he threw more white fire into the mass of dwarves with his right hand and began to cast another fireball with his left. Just as he finished casting, Jori slung hellfire into the mass of dwarves from his right shoulder.

Neither of their attacks landed.

A dwarf raised a hand with a look of concentration, and both of their spells splashed against an invisible barrier and dissipated. Only then did Bernt realize he was wearing some kind of robe under his ill-fitting armor. Before Bernt even had a chance to feel frustrated, the enemy mage and those nearest to him disappeared in a small avalanche of falling rock – most likely courtesy of Kustov or Dayle.

A force shield appeared over the breach, and for a moment Bernt thought that the duergar had decided to go on the defensive. That was when he noticed the look of intense concentration on Fiora, and the fact that Ed was using his pipe to trace a lot of runes into the air.

The tunnel shook with bone-rattling force. The dwarves on the far side of Fiora’s barrier that he could see were dead, lying in crumpled heaps that bled from every orifice. That left just a small group in the tunnel with them. Bernt whooped and threw another handful of white plasma at the enemy as began to cast another fireball with his left.

“Down!” Bernt heard someone shout. Then something smacked him in the face.

***

Bernt stared up at the tunnel ceiling, trying to remember what it was that he was supposed to be doing. It was important. Urgent, even.

There were people shouting nearby. Fighting. They were fighting. He’d been hit with something.

His head hurt. That was bad. Head injuries were dangerous, and it was hard to tell how serious they were. He needed to take his potion. Bernt was fumbling at his belt for it when he finally realized that something was tugging at his other arm. It was Jori – he could feel her concern leaking through their bond. She was worried about him.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Come on, we need to go help.” He plucked the seal off of the minor healing potion and downed it. It wouldn’t do very much right away, but at least he wouldn’t have to worry about bleeding into his brain.

He wasn’t the only one who’d been hit. A few of the guards were down, but Josie was already checking on them. Not stopping, Bernt got back into position. The tunnel was filling with duergar again, but this time there was a massive hellhound as well. They’d reached the defenders, who were engaging them directly now. Spells weren’t just flying in toward the attackers anymore, either. Fire, magic missiles, and less familiar looking spell projectiles flew from both directions. Ed, by the looks of it, was stopping the bulk of the enemy attacks with multiple force shields, but he wasn’t having an easy time.

There was no telling exactly what the duergar had, but it was clear that they’d brought quite a few mages of their own to complement the physical fighters and warlocks that the Underkeepers were more used to dealing with.

Bernt focused on the hellhound and flung a bolt of banefire at it, following it up with more white fire from his right. A dwarf stepped in front of the banefire, raising a hand to cast a protective barrier in front of herself. The banefire splashed against it harmlessly, saving the demon, but the perpetual flame punched through as though it weren’t there.

The small handful of plasma struck her arm, mostly spattering onto her armor. She tried to shake it off, getting some of it onto her robes. As soon as it touched the cloth, it flared brightly, feeding on the enchantments layered into it. She shouted in surprise and tried to cast something, but it was too late. The mage went down with a scream, writhing in pain and terror. Bernt watched in horrified fascination, unable to look away as the screams cut off and she shook violently. Fire poured from her mouth as the flames consumed her from within in seconds.

He'd ignited the mana inside her channels.

He would need to name this spell – his version of it, anyway. “Perpetual flame” wasn’t adequate for… that. Shaking off the gruesome sight, he prepared another banefire spell for the hellhound. Before he could cast it, though, the demon was struck from another angle by the same spell. It went down with an agonized howl.

Confused, Bernt looked to find the caster – who had learned his spell?

On the other side of the killing field, Dayle waggled his eyebrows at him. Really? Dayle hated pyromancy!

But there was no time to think about it now. It was getting too hot. Even if he kept renewing the heat barriers, they wouldn’t be able to keep this up for long.